


Riddle Me This

by bookhousegirl



Series: Make Room For Other Things [1]
Category: The Wire
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Language, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/pseuds/bookhousegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dukie's different. His heart is big.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riddle Me This

**Author's Note:**

> These two break my heart so much at the end of Late Editions. I wanted to write a little something for them on the day they go to Six Flags in Not For Attribution. I have some more Michael/Dukie one shots in mind, and I'm not sure how any of it will turn out, but I wanted to try. The usual disclaimers about not for profit and the characters not being mine, etc, etc. Title is from a ride at Six Flags America in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

“Yo, Mike, Bug’s asleep.” Dukie stands, hovers, in the hallway, between the doors of Bug’s room and Michael’s room. “He was tired.”

Michael kicks off his black Jordans and stretches his legs out on his bed, mussing the navy blue plaid bedspread a little bit. It still smells new, like plastic and chemicals that sometimes make his stomach hurt. He settles with his back against the plain white wall. The bed doesn’t have a headboard to rest against. They didn’t know anything about furniture and that sort of shit when Chris had showed up with a bunch of mattresses wrapped in plastic, gestured, and said, “Good, huh?”

Michael had just nodded and said, “Sure.”

Now he wishes he would have said something about a headboard. Not like he knew it was even called a headboard, but he could’ve described it and he would have something to lean up against now.

“M’tired too,” Dukie whines a little, holding onto the doorframe with his hands and swinging his body back and forth, inside the room then outside, inside the room then outside.

Michael ignores him and leans back, closes his eyes, tries to forget his headache and how fucking hot the fucking city is. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s tired too. Since when did going to Six Flags get exhausting?

“Go the fuck to bed, then.”

“It’s cool that we met girls though? Right Mike?” Dukie launches himself into the room and onto Michael’s bed, knocking into his calves and feet.

“Watch it, fucker!” Michael shoves Dukie’s shoulder, but it’s without any force or meaning behind it.

Dukie just laughs and stretches out, perpendicular to Michael, long legs hanging off the bed, which must be uncomfortable.

Dukie still looks pleased about the girls and Michael shakes his head and looks out the window, seeing kids streaming around, chasing each other in the alley, even though it’s getting dark. They’re young, not that older than Bug probably, they’ve got their shoes off and are whooping and hollering around like they don’t care if they get in trouble or if anybody gives a shit.

“Dukie, you know they were slummin’, you know we were just some sort of thugs from the hood they’re gonna tell their stupid whiteass friends about?”

“Yeah, I know,” Dukie says, not looking up from the porn magazine that Chris had left. “S’no big deal, though. I don’t care.”

“Why don’t you care?” Dukie shrugs and goes back to the magazine.

Michael glares down at him, not satisfied at all, Dukie always does shit like this, brings shit up like it’s important to him and then tries to blow it off. “Dukie. Why don’t you care yo?”

Dukie pouts and rolls over to look at Michael. “Because Mike. It wasn’t really about them. It was about doing something fun, with you and Bug. Like we was kids and it was summer. That’s what kids are supposed to do in the summer. Not all this other bullshit.”

“So you think this stuff I’m dealing with is bullshit.” Michael folds his arms. He just got bitched out about leaving the corner for fuck’s sake. He’s the one keeping them here, keeping them safe.

“Nah, that’s not what I’m sayin’ and you know it.” Dukie sighs heavily and tosses the magazine to the floor. He folds his arms under his head like a pillow. “It was nice, for a minute. The girls was just like icing on the cake.” He pauses. “It was nice to have someone like me.”

“They didn’t like you and they didn’t matter. Plenty of people who matter like you, Duke.” It’s harsh, yeah. So fucking what? Michael means this when he says it. Dukie’s all fragile about this kind of shit, but Michael can’t blame him. Dukie’s family sucked and Michael’s sure he would beat the shit out of all of them if he was sure Dukie would never find out. Because he still weirdly loves them, which is just absolutely fucked, in Michael’s mind. But Dukie’s different. His heart is big.

“Don’t you, like, want someone to be with, you know, some day, Mike?”

“I think I want lots of people to be with,” he says lightly back. Michael feels uncomfortable with this conversation. Relationships are stupid, even talking about them, stupid. People treat each other like shit, look at mom and that fuckface piece of shit she got with. If that’s what being with someone is like then pass. Better to have your crew, who’s got your back, and your family that’s blood. Maybe. And that’s it.

“Love em and leave em, you know? Simpler that way.”

Dukie is silent for a while and Michael wonders for a second if he’s fallen asleep on Michael’s bed again. Fucking Dukie.

“Have you ever been in love?” Dukie’s head pops up.

Michael almost laughs at that question. It’s so unbearably Dukie, making a discussion about girls at Six Flags into something about being in love. “Jesus fuck, no. And that’s not what that saying means, yo. Don’t be stupid.” He stares at his friend’s face, which is curious and kind of innocent. “Why, ‘ave you?” He somehow wants to hear the answer to this one.

“No.” Dukie picks absently at the bedspread. “But it might be cool, you know.”

“You starting to sound like some of that Days of Our Lives shit you’ve been watchin.” Michael kicks Dukie’s leg to get him to look up again. “You know that’s not how it’s gonna be, so don’t even front, Duke. We’re not gettin’ some dumbass white picket fence in the motherfuckin’ county, okay? I don’t give two fucks about Namond, that shit isn’t happening.”

There’s silence again and Michael stands up, even though it’s his room. He’s tired and this rambling ass conversation is even more exhausting. “I’m gonna go down to the corner an’ get a fried chicken platter. Want somethin’?”

When Dukie doesn’t answer, Michael feels his frustration rise again and turns to go.

“I know it’s not gonna be ‘we’ Mike.” His voice is muffled, breath stunted by the bedspread, where Dukie’s face is pushed into it.

Michael stops in the doorframe. “The fuck you talkin’ about?”

“Jus, you know, the house and all. And you said ‘we’re not gettin’ some house in the county’ and yeah. Whatever.” Dukie’s voice is strained and a little crushed.

He turns over on the bed and smiles up at Michael. “You ‘member that day, Mike, in the summer, right before school started? We had them water balloons and Randy told us all to piss in ‘em to get back against the terrace kids?” He’s smiling and his face is suddenly lighter. “And Namond got us ice cream.” Dukie laughs quietly, happily, caught up in the memory, as if the ice cream part was what was funny.

It’s so Dukie to remember it like that, like he wasn’t the one who had gotten bullied. Like he wasn’t the one almost didn’t get ice cream, Michael realizes.

“Even you got ice cream.” Michael walks back to the bed and grabs Dukie’s ankle, shaking playfully.

Dukie smiles again. “Yeah,” his voice is wistful and fond. “Cause you told him to.”

Michael’s eyes narrow and he feels his heart clench a little bit at the memory. “Course I did.” He lets go of Dukie’s ankle and says again, “Course I did, Duke.”

He shuffles down the hall and jogs down the stairs a little quicker than he normally would.


End file.
